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Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

nytimes.com

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Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#101

Post by ekiru »

dragonwriter wrote: post #68
ksenzee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks Not everywhere, they won't. Santa Barbara just passed a straw ban without any exceptions for disabled people who actually need plastic straws. In other places, it's still legal for restaurants to keep straws around for those who need them, but the restaurants don't all know that. From what I can tell, reading what straw-using disabled people have to say…

> Santa Barbara just passed a straw ban without any exceptions for disabled people who actually need plastic straws Reusable straws (both plastic and metal) are available, as are paper and non-paper compostable straws. I don't know of any disability that requires people to use single-use-but-stays-around-forever straws. If businesses aren't accommodating disabled patrons with any of the legal, readily available, reas…

> Reusable straws (both plastic and metal) are available, as are paper and non-paper compostable straws. I don't know of any disability that requires people to use single-use-but-stays-around-forever straws.

Many of these alternatives are usable in some contexts for people with some disabilities requiring them to use straws, however, they're all also dangerous or unusable to some disabled people (paper straws can be a choking hazard, rigid straws of all kinds are dangerous for people with tics or other conditions that may lead to them biting down involuntarily, non-paper compostable straws pose allergy risks and are rarely labeled in such a way as to communicate whether they contain possible allergens, several types of reusable or compostable straws can be dangerous in sufficiently hot drinks) and disabled people with some combinations of conditions can end up having all of the alternatives potentially unsafe for them, save disposable non-compostable plastic.

> anyone who needs or wants straw should probably be proactive in preparing themselves in case facilities fail, which is simple enough to do.

That would be simple for most abled people to do, yes. It would be less simple for those disabled people for whom fetching a straw they brought with them and putting it in their drink would require assistance, which, as it happens, are also people who are rather likely to need straws to drink.

> I suspect the problems here are transition issues that'll disappear fairly soon

You don't seem to be aware of the problems that disabled people have been pointing out, so I think your suspicion may not be very well founded here.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#102

Post by ekiru »

jbob2000 wrote: post #63
ksenzee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks Not everywhere, they won't. Santa Barbara just passed a straw ban without any exceptions for disabled people who actually need plastic straws. In other places, it's still legal for restaurants to keep straws around for those who need them, but the restaurants don't all know that. From what I can tell, reading what straw-using disabled people have to say…

How hard is it to carry a metal straw with you? You hear news about the ban, and you put a couple plastic ones in your bag until the metal one from amazon arrives. Why are people so helpless? Jesus christ, it takes half a second to figure out this solution for yourself.

> How hard is it to carry a metal straw with you? You hear news about the ban, and you put a couple plastic ones in your bag until the metal one from amazon arrives.

Metal straws are dangerous due to for many disabled people due to the risk of injuring themselves by biting down involuntarily because of the same disabilities which necessitate their use of straws in the first place. For many others, the inflexibility of metal straws mean that they do not actually enable them to drink independently.

> Why are people so helpless? Jesus christ, it takes half a second to figure out this solution for yourself.

It is indeed very easy to think of this approach. For people with disabilities which make metal straws unusable or dangerous, it probably doesn't take very long to think of why it isn't a solution for them.

(As a minor aside, as a person lacking any such disability: metal straws can be quite a painful experience with hot beverages. Although I'm given to understand that it's traditional in Argentina with mate, and my Argentine in-laws seemed much more comfortable doing so at a higher temperature than I was, so I guess it is probably possible to get used to that.)

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#104

Post by dajohnson89 »

bargl wrote: post #79
pkaye wrote: post #40

Same thing happened in Mumbai a week back. The monsoon rains pulled back all the trash. http://observers.france24.com/en/20180720-video-mumbai-ocean... Also the Dominican Republic is pretty developed country but in neighboring Haiti things are in pretty bad shape. I saw in a Youtube video by somebody who went there on an eco tour the piles on garbage on a river. He said the garbage was so bad you could walk across th…

I was in Haiti. This is true, mounds and mounds of styrafoam lunch disposal because there is NO place to put garbage. If it is collected it's burned. The people will burn it themselves because again there is no place to collect it.

Ditto. Haiti's beaches near the city center were HORRIBLE. The only people on the beaches were poor folks trying to find scraps. Didn't help that they functioned as a de facto dump as well.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#105

Post by newnewpdro »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #91
newnewpdro wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the paper decomposing in the landfill still part of the carbon cycle? Landfills break down, shrink, venting gases back into the atmosphere.

Yes, but at a reduced rate. And the methane at landfills is either burned off or used to generate electricity.

> And the methane at landfills is either burned off or used to generate electricity.

There's a retired landfill not far from my childhood home which was covered with grass and the area turned into a park. It had vent pipes dotting the large hill colloquially referred to as "mount trashmore", but nothing else was done to manage the vented gases.

Perhaps you meant "may be", rather than "is". Especially if we're talking about landfill practices across the globe.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#106

Post by yupasama »

mjfern wrote: post #35
lisper wrote: post #14

My wife and I were traveling in Borneo a few years back. They have "water villages" there where all the houses are built on stilts in shallow water. You could not see the shore because it was completely covered in a layer of garbage. It was like living on top of a landfill. At first I thought it was garbage thrown out by the villagers, but it's not. It was garbage that washes in on the tide. Every now and then the vi…

This photo is surreal. I can't believe a trash filled planet is becoming a reality and we are doing little to nothing to stop it.

For this reason I'm kinda glad stuff like this is happening, it will be a clear reminder of what we're doing to the planet. Kinda like when our rivers caught on fire in the 70s.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#107

Post by yupasama »

yupasama wrote: post #106
mjfern wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This photo is surreal. I can't believe a trash filled planet is becoming a reality and we are doing little to nothing to stop it.

For this reason I'm kinda glad stuff like this is happening, it will be a clear reminder of what we're doing to the planet. Kinda like when our rivers caught on fire in the 70s.

It's unfortunate that it's happening to someone, but people need visual reminders that there's a problem.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#108

Post by jbob2000 »

ekiru wrote: post #102
jbob2000 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is it to carry a metal straw with you? You hear news about the ban, and you put a couple plastic ones in your bag until the metal one from amazon arrives. Why are people so helpless? Jesus christ, it takes half a second to figure out this solution for yourself.

> How hard is it to carry a metal straw with you? You hear news about the ban, and you put a couple plastic ones in your bag until the metal one from amazon arrives. Metal straws are dangerous due to for many disabled people due to the risk of injuring themselves by biting down involuntarily because of the same disabilities which necessitate their use of straws in the first place. For many others, the inflexibility o…

If we were to answer every use case every time we need to make a societal change, then nothing would get done.

The scope of people you mention with that disability is very very small. And still, they could work around metal by using a piece of rubber on the tip. Hell, someone could invent a special straw just for disabled people (we could make it longer and more flexible, you might call it a tube!).

Instead of ripping apart my lay ideas and complaining about our attempts at fixing climate change, perhaps we ought to be thinking of better solutions for our friends with disabilities. Because ultimately, climate change will take the lives of people with disabilities before it takes the lives of able-bodied people.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#109

Post by toomuchtodo »

newnewpdro wrote: post #105
toomuchtodo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but at a reduced rate. And the methane at landfills is either burned off or used to generate electricity.

> And the methane at landfills is either burned off or used to generate electricity. There's a retired landfill not far from my childhood home which was covered with grass and the area turned into a park. It had vent pipes dotting the large hill colloquially referred to as "mount trashmore", but nothing else was done to manage the vented gases. Perhaps you meant "may be", rather than "is". Especially if we're talking…

As with everything, it’s nuanced. The EPA regulations requiring methane management are fairly recent, although some waste management orgs have been more progressive than others historically (and there’s money to be made in piping or burning that methane).

With that said, it’s entirely possible there are older landfills that are simply exhausting methane into the atmosphere. I expect their numbers to fall over time, as the EPA has a substantial budget (~$100MM) for landfill custodians who would like to remediate their methane disposal.

https://www.epa.gov/lmop

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#110

Post by jbob2000 »

ksenzee wrote: post #87
jbob2000 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toilet paper and drinking straws are not equivalent. TP is biodegradable and EVERYBODY needs it. If stores were to stop carrying TP, then everyone would need to carry it around and that's silly. Disabled people aren't helpless, they generally will do everything they can up until their disability stops them. I'm really struggling to think of a disability where someone would be prevented from putting a straw on their p…

Don't listen to me on this, listen to actual disabled people: https://www.eater.com/2018/7/19/17586742/plastic-straw-ban-d...

I read your article, thanks for sharing. Just because she is disabled doesn’t mean she can’t change too. I understand that disability makes change difficult, but I think these issues are important enough that the struggle to change is worth it.

There are solutions to her problems, she just doesn’t want to change. The solutions she presents are regressive (“keep plastic straws behind the counter”) or dismissive (“don’t take away MY straws, take away someone else’s plastic”). I understand and I sympathize but I want to reduce plastic usage more than I want her to maintain her drinking strategy.

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